The Scout assesses the top-performing XI over the first seven Gameweeks of 2025/26 Fantasy Premier League.
Defenders and budget-friendly buys have been the big success stories of the season so far.
Six of the nine top-scoring Fantasy players are defenders, with the first five of them making our early Team of the Season.
By contrast, only one forward makes the cut in this 5-4-1 line-up.
It's an extremely affordable line-up, too, with just two players, Erling Haaland (£14.5m) and Antoine Semenyo (£7.9m), costing more than £6.7m and the entire side worth only £72.3m.
If you'd started 2025/26 Fantasy with the team below and captained Haaland every week, you'd be sitting on 604 points and first in the world - and that's without the use of chips!
Robin Roefs (Sunderland) £4.6m, 41 pts
Level with Nick Pope (£5.1m) for points but £0.5m cheaper, Roefs has kept three clean sheets in seven Gameweeks. That's as many as any promoted goalkeeper managed in the whole of 2024/25.
The Sunderland goalkeeper's totals of seven save points and six bonus points can't be beaten by any other Premier League 'keeper in this campaign. Roefs is responsible for two of the four double-digit hauls that goalkeepers have registered in 2025/26.
Jurrien Timber (Arsenal) £5.9m, 48 pts
The top-scoring defender in the game, Timber has supplemented three clean sheets with four attacking returns. Half of his 48 points came in Gameweek 2, when he posted the biggest individual Gameweek points tally of the season to date.
Timber, who averages 8.0 points per start in 2025/26, leads every other defender for FPL points despite only featuring as a substitute on the opening weekend.
Gabriel (Arsenal) £6.3m, 47 pts
Timber's team-mate, Gabriel, is only a point behind the Dutchman. The Brazil international has played every minute of Arsenal's Premier League campaign, delivering four clean sheets, one goal and five bonus points.
He's impressed when it comes to defensive contribution points, too: he has six of those across the first seven Gameweeks, which is more than he would have banked in the entirety of 2024/25.
Marcos Senesi (AFC Bournemouth) £5.0m, 46 pts
Speaking of defensive contribution points, no player has more of those than Senesi. The Argentinian centre-back has only failed to bank defensive contributions in one of his seven starts so far this season.
Aside from that, three clean sheets, two assists and six bonus points have helped him average 6.6 points per match.
Marc Guehi (Crystal Palace) £4.8m, 46 pts
The Crystal Palace centre-back is the best value-for-money pick in Fantasy this season, delivering 9.6 points per million spent.
Guehi has registered one goal, two assists and three clean sheets, while he's picked up defensive contribution points in each of the last three Gameweeks.
Dan Burn (Newcastle) £5.1m, 43 pts
No defender has more clean sheets than Newcastle United's England international, who has helped shut out the opposition in five of the first seven Gameweeks.
As well as banking six defensive contribution points, Burn benefited from being moved to left-back in Gameweek 7, assisting one of Newcastle's two goals against Nottingham Forest.
Antoine Semenyo (AFC Bournemouth) £7.9m, 66 pts
Bournemouth's in-form winger is a remarkable 21 points ahead of the next highest-scoring midfielder, having delivered nine attacking returns over the first two months of the season. That's already half of the combined goals and assists he registered in 2024/25.
Blanking in only one of the first seven Gameweeks, he even delivered defensive contribution points in the goalless draw with Newcastle in Gameweek 5.
The Ghanaian has been bought by 6.3million managers this season, making him the most transferred-in player, and unsurprisingly has also risen in price by an unmatched figure of £0.9m.
Moises Caicedo (Chelsea) £5.8m, 45 pts
Chelsea's midfielder always looked likely to profit from defensive contribution points this season, and he has indeed done so in four of his seven starts.
What we weren't expecting was a goal rush: Caicedo has scored on three occasions already in 2025/26, which is as many as he had managed in the previous three Premier League seasons put together.
Jaidon Anthony (Burnley) £5.7m, 41 pts
The breakout star from the promoted clubs, Anthony has made light of a tricky opening fixture run for Burnley by delivering five attacking returns over the first seven Gameweeks.
Semenyo is the only midfielder who can better Anthony's total of four Premier League goals scored.
Enzo Fernandez (Chelsea) £6.7m, 41 pts
Joint-third among FPL midfielders for attacking returns, Enzo has benefited from deputising for the injured Cole Palmer (£10.3m) in a more advanced midfield role by scoring three goals and assisting a further two.
Erling Haaland (Man City) £14.5m, 70 pts
FPL's leading points scorer and goalscorer in any position, Haaland is over 30 points clear of the next highest-scoring forward and has scored over twice as many points as the similarly priced Salah.
The Norwegian's totals of 10 attacking returns and 17 bonus points are the best in the game, as is his average of 10.0 points per match.